


Unfreeze my Heart

by WIWJ



Series: Of Arms [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:41:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25255585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WIWJ/pseuds/WIWJ
Summary: Chapters from here on out will be moments of time in the Battle of the Queens universe.They will mostly be in first person, because that's how they came out of my brain.I will date them, but they won't be in chronological order. Ideas are welcome.Many are already written. :)
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Of Arms [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678636
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**_Two months after Jon's Army Liberated King's Landing- Part One._ **

…...

She'd taken to calling the baby Ty. Mostly because she is tired of people asking his name and not having an answer. She's still not sure what it stands for, but Samwell Tarly had sent her a extensive Lannister Family Tree that had been littered with Tywin's Tyricks, Tyrion's, Tyrels, and handfuls of others.

She figures she'll decide on one at some point. She writes to Winterfell and Tyrion writes back with tales of the other Ty's helpfully and some days she looks for the traits from those stories in her son.

Her father is beside himself with glee that he can now properly introduce his sweet heir and she finds it more endearing than she'd expected. She had thought she'd feel guilty, lying about the boy being his true born heir, but she's not. She loves this child as much as she thinks she possibly could love anything, and pretending she's carried an birthed him is so simple she thinks it true.

_ Stay close to the truth.  _ Tyrion had told her. _ It's the only way to keep the story straight. _

She created the story from truth and therefore I had become just that.

_ He was born in the Red Keep. _

_ They'd spent the night in the Dragons Crypt. _

_ Jaime had held her. They'd both cried. _

_ He came just before the Dragon Queen. _

_ Jaime had laid him in her arms and rushed off to stall the battle. _

_ Tyrion had helped her get away to Tarth. _

_ Jaime had given his life. _

It was all true. Every sentence. How could she feel bad for what she'd left out?

She rarely calls him by his name. She'd taken to calling him her Bright Star because that is what he is to her, her light in the darkness. She refuses to admit out loud that she wouldn't have survived without him. That she would have given into the exhaustion and despair if not for the tiny pair of Jaime's eyes looking up at her from her arms. It's not very noble and it's not very Lord Commander of the King's Guard to admit she planned more than once on throwing herself from the tower of Evenfall Hall, but she has. She has clutched the baby to her neck and bathed him with her tears more than she cares to admit. She promises herself not to turn into Lysa Tully, she'll stop before he's old enough to understand, but she suddenly isn't as judgemental of the woman as she might have been before.

She thinks it's unbecoming of a member of the King's Guard, more less the Lord Commander, to think that if anything happens to her baby she'll simply walk into the Narrow Sea and die. She wants to send a raven to King Jon and tell him that he's made an error, that he should choose someone else,

However, a raven arrives from Jon instead.

_ His majesty, King Jon commands that you present yourself to the River Gate immediately. A ship has been dispatched and will arrive post haste _

It's official, in Arya's handwriting, below it Grand Maester Tarly has scribbled.  _ Bring the baby. I'll meet you personally. _

Yara herself comes to collect her the next morning.

"For how long?" She asks the other woman cradling her two month old and ushering Janali and Amena ahead of her.

"As long as it takes I suppose." The mistress of ships tells her cryptically, helping pull her aboard her fastest ship.

..

She can see Sam Tarly and his wife as they pull into port. As soon as the plank is set the chubby fellow is already mounting is horse and his adorably pregnant wife has opened the carriage door.

Gilly is upon her immediately, moving down the path and attempting to grasp Ty from her, nodding for the rest of her party to load the vehicle.

"Go with Sam. I'll take him." She coaxes. Brienne looks at the Grand Maester.

"I'll explain in route." He says impatiently.

"You'll explain now." Brienne tells him, suddenly feeling a jolt of her status. It's as if King's Landing itself has awakened her former persona from the haze she's been swimming in.

"It's not safe to speak out here."

"If it's unsafe then my child stays with me!" She tells him firmly.

"Sam?" Gilly whispers, the man nods at his wife and she leans in. "They've found him."

"Found wh-?" Her question suddenly dies, and the other woman's face turns soft, comforting. Jaime. Brienne's brain registers what this is. They've found Jaime, or what was left of him anyway.

"Go." Gilly says, grasping her baby again and pulling him from her arms. "Go on with Sam."

Someone is helping her onto a horse, she looks at the Maester who gives her a nod and a soft smile she doesn't feel she deserves. She follows.

She meant what she told Tyrion, that having Widow's Wail was better than having his remains. She doesn't need to see him, two months dead either.

There is a particular cold that settles into her, it's lodged itself into her body with with some finality.

"Gilly is taking the baby to Arya." Sam tells her at some point. "He'll be safest with her."

"Safe from what?" She dares to ask him as they ride along the edge of Visenya's Hill she sees the damage to the center that Tyrion told her of. It's not as well repaired as the south side, but wildfire is harder to contain and clean up from than dragon fire. It was Jaime who told her that, she thinks. After one of his nightmares at Winterfell, in the beginning, when he was still telling her about them.

When Sam doesn't answer she looks at him, and he waits. Nodding when he sees the recognition dawning in her eyes. Safe from those who might suspect what he is. This isn't Tarth, and although her armor provides a legitimate sense of the unknown, she was never visibly pregnant. Cersei was.

She looks at the bell tower and is almost surprised it's still half standing, it looks like it may crash at any moment. She adds it to her list of things that must be dealt with. Things she must take to Jon. She'll tell him she wants it down. Tyrion will probably commission a statue. She'll deny the request, or beg Arya to, she's not sure who's job that is. It strikes her how quickly she has become all business since they pulled her baby from her arms. He mind has already gone to another place.

Her husband is dead, and her baby cared for, Brienne has on a white cloak and she's riding horseback through the crumbled city. Examining it, like that is why she's here. Not to view her husbands decaying corpse. She swallows down the sickeningly bitter heat that fills her mouth with that thought.

They stop at the West Watch and a small group is clustered there. She recognizes Bronn and for a second she envisions she has a cross bow and she shoots him on sight. Why Tyrion took pity on him she'll never understand.

"Lady Lannister." He greets her, steadying her horse as she disembarks, landing on the dirt with a satisfying thud. She spins on him, giving him her full height and all the power that comes with it. She watches him flinch back, just a little, as he tries not to shrink away.

"You will address me as Lord Commander." She tells him angrily. "While you still have a tongue."

He sneers at her, like she is the cold blooded beast that she feels like, giving a nod.

"You're welcome then." He says as he stomps off before she can snap that this is nothing more than a formality. Nothing more than the last act of a widowed warrior whose heart has already frozen. Her body is icier than Winterfell now. For a second she feels a pang of regret for her baby, that his mother will be an empty cold-hearted shell.

_ Irony or fate?  _ The words ring through her in Jaime's voice and she presses her jaw together as tightly as she can. Sam's hand is on her back as they walk past two more gold cloaks who mutter 'Lord Commander' as she approaches. She thinks it's a bit much as the ascend the steps to see yet another guard at the top of the stairs. Ceremony be damned, it's just a body. Who would want to steal a dead man's bones? Even his.

Sam nods at the woman who opens the door as they speak softly. Brienne's impatience grows. The room is nice, cool,crisp and full of cleanliness. It's a place she wouldn't care to tarnish with a body. Her eyes flitter about before the land on the bed in the far corner and-.

_ Jaime _ .

Jaime, just as she last saw him. Thinner. Paler. But Jaime just the same.

Her mind tries to fathom how his body could possibly be so preserved two months dead when Sam removes her cloak and begins to rattle off a list of injuries and ailments as if his words should make sense, or even matter.

It's only when his body takes a particularly staggered breath and she watches his broad chest shake at the effort that it dawns on her. He's alive.

The heat floods back into her so quickly she stumbles. Sam's hands grip her, but he says nothing. A barely contained whimper makes its way to her throat and the next thing she knows she's dropped to her knees beside the bed.

Her hands shake as her fingers explore the outline of is face and the deep purple of the healing bruises there. There is an ugly gash beneath his collar bone that is so freshly treated there are specks of red blood on the white bandage. Bright red, the type reserved for the living.

She can't fathom this; the feeling that life had slowly drained from her over 60 days, the feeling her heart finally close in on the trip over and now everything has returned too quickly. It's suddenly an overwhelming onslaught and her brain simply can't figure it out.

Then his green eyes flick open and turn to her lazily and she lets out a strangled, painful sob. His brow wrinkles and a hoarse whisper comes from his raw throat.

"Why are you crying?" He asks her with confused concern and she cries harder. He slowly pulls his hand to the one resting on his cheek now and runs his thumb across it. "Slow breaths." He coaches her and everything in her shatters and reunites. She presses her sobbing face gingerly into the crook of his right arm as his fingers continue to stroke. "Shh, slow breaths."

"Shut up." She whimpers against his bound ribs and he huffs out a careful laugh.

"That's better." He sighs, his body going slack again and he slips back under.

"Jaime." She breathes softly against his skin, a haze of palpable relief building in the room. "Jaime."

His thumb twitches against her hand his lips push nearly imperceivable against her thumb as she takes slow short breaths to calm herself.


	2. Chapter 2

Two months after Jon's Army Liberated King's Landing- Part Two

….

"How?" Brienne asks, her back pressed up against the wall, her armor discarded in a pile at the entryway her left hand still gripping Jaime's upper arm, her eyes never leaving the uneven rise and fall of his chest.

"He was in a mission house in Dunksondale. No idea how he got there." Davos Seaworth tells her as he rubs at his face. "The best guess is some Dothraki or UnSullied that had be separated from the main group and didn't know what the hell was happening found him half dead on the street, recognized him from Winterfell and took him along.

"He was probably forgotten when they heard about Daenerys." The Onion Knight sighs. "Thankfully he was too beaten up for anyone there to recognize. The more he came around the more he started talking. The less it made sense that he was some unfortunate smithy from the Street of Steel. One of Bronn's new girls arrived with a story about a one handed war victim who cried out in his sleep. Your name came up and Bronn thought he'd better go check it out."

"I guess that's what he meant by 'you're welcome.'" Brienne rubs her shoulder with her free hand. "He always did have a soft spot for Jaime, right up until he threatened to kill me."

Davos makes a snorting sound.

"Have you gotten word to Tyrion?"

"No one can know right now." He shook his head slowly. "He can't head south right now anyhow, not with the snow queen so close to her time. He'll find out in the spring."

"If he lives." Samwell Tarly interjects from his crowded desk. "He still has to live."

"He's going to live." Brienne snaps, her face sharp. "I haven't gone through all seven hells to let him die."

"As you Command it, Ser Brienne." The Grand Maester breaths.

"Speaking of people who are close to their time. Shouldn't you go home to your wife and child?"

"You'll find Lord Commander, that just because we are now allowed to have families while in service to our new king doesn't mean we have time to have them." He raises an eyebrow.

Brienne lays her head back against the wall again, her fingertips sliding up and down Jaime's stunted arm.

"Can he be moved?" She asks quietly. "Will it hurt him?"

"What do you mean? Just in the ways I showed you earlier."

"No. Not.. physically turned. Can we move him, to the Keep?"

"My Lady-." Sam is shaking his head.

"I don't think that that's in anyone's best-." Davos talks over him.

"I'm not asking your input for security matters." She puts her hand up to the onion knight. "Either of you, that is of my concern as granted to me by King Jon. I'm asking you as a wife to a Maester. Can he be moved?"

"He can." Tarly tells her, his wide eyes taking in hers. Brienne nods soundly.

"Thank you Maester Tarly." She looks at Jaime, his face relaxed from whatever herbal haze Samwell has concocted for him. "If the two of you don't mind I'd like to be alone with my husband."

…..

"Brienne?" She wakes with a start and finds his cat green eyes unblinking, inches from her face. She sucks in a quick breath before letting her own sink back shut.

"Jaime." She answers him once her body has calmed.

"Why are you on the floor?"

"The bed is small and you're badly bruised." She blinked at him, he wrinkles his forehead, but accepts her information.

"Where the hells are we?"" His usual disdain for the unfamiliar floods his voice and she can't help but click her cheek at his arrogance, even though it makes her body feel lighter.

"The West Watch." She tells him, reaching out her hand and laying it lightly on his cheek. He's clammy, but his skin is cool, she glides her thumb across it. No signs of infection; that's number two on Sam's list of concerns. She's written them down, along with how to prevent them, detect them and how best to treat them.

"Why?" He grimaces, and she knows it out of confusion and not pain. That is a different grimace. She's held him dehydrated, feverish and dying. He's none of those things now.

"Where would you rather be?" She asks him, tiring of explaining all the pieces only to have him forget them the next time he wakes.

"Anywhere but King's Landing." He sounds disgusted. "I hate it here."

"You've always seemed in a pretty big hurry to rush back." She sighs, hauling her tired body up off the floor before gingerly sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Yes." He squints. "Why was that again?"

To fuck your sister, my love. She thinks in her head, but Cersei is too large of a topic for them to broach now. The stab of anger that his sister's name brings her is so quick and unexpected she feels guilty afterward, she leans towards his hand that has started to weakly rub at her arm and kisses his fingers. Jaime grips the nape of her neck and she lets him kiss her before pressing her forehead against his chin and closing her eyes.

"You should lie down." He tells her with such gentleness it makes her want to cry.

"You're hurt." She reminds him, her hands easing gently over his battered body.

"I'm very confused." He announces, his voice full of concern. He is, and it scares her too, but he's never once woken up and not whispered her name. He obviously knows she's come, unless he's been doing that for the last two months unanswered. That makes her throat feel tight. Bronn's girl had said he’d called out her name.

"It'll pass." She forces the words out.

"Are you sure?" He asks her, studying her face. She nods. He moves uncomfortably on the bed and her hands flutter to him.

"Be careful." Brienne helps him hold himself off of the pillows as he moves ever so slightly towards the wall. "What are you doing? You can't get up."

"I'm not." He swats at her hands. "Help me."

"Help you do what?" Jaime winces at her and her hands ghost over him.

"Turn." She braces his body as he moves and adjusts his legs accordingly. He grits his teeth, but still manages to sound satisfied. "There."

"Better?" She asks running one hand down his body while the other strokes his long hair. He takes slow shallow breaths, like he's talked her through a dozen times and she wonders where it ever came from. She tries to file it away in things she'll ask him when he's more himself. She won't let herself think that there won't be a time when he's more himself. She can't think that way.

"I'm fine." He says softly. "Lie down."

Her shoulders soften, and he looks at her like if she doesn't obey he'll figure out how to make her, so she slips carefully against the blankets.

"I'm fine too." She tells him. His eyebrow slants down towards the bridge of his nose.

"You're not a good liar." He blinks at her. "You need to be held."

"What?" Her voice is spills out of her in a high soft murmur.

"I know that look." His hand comes out and grips her upper arm, giving it a tug.

"Jaime."

"I can't move to you. You're going to have to come to me." He tells her breathlessly.

"I-." She shakes her head but he keeps pulling until she relents and inches closer to him until there isn't any space between them, but she can't bring herself to put any weight on his battered torso at all. His thumb is on her cheek, stroking slowly. "Jaime."

"I'm confused." He repeats. "But I know something big's happened. I can see it in your eyes."

"Something big's happened." She tells him, feeling the first pricks of new tears start.

"And you're very worried." She lets her eyelids lower moving her face forward until their foreheads meet and she can feel his nose against her own. "And tired. And you need me to hold you."

She huffs at him, sniffing back at fresh onslaught of tears.

"I still can't believe your here." She whispers.

"Where did I go?" He asks softly and she decides she'll say Dunstondale but before she can his breath hitches just a little and he mutters out the word. "South." She meets his eyes. "Tell me."

"I don't think that's a good idea. You're properly injured." She reminds him. "If you were any other man you'd be dead."

"Thankfully then, I'm not any other man." She is unbelievably thankful. He looks at her his eyes soft. "I went south. I was in flea bottom." He's piecing things together, slowly, carefully. "And you-." He blinks at her. "You slapped me! Why did you-?"

"Because I love you." She told him.

"I love you too." He says like it's an involuntary response when she says it that he must repeat it. “And then.."

"And then?" She stills, she doesn't want to to think about what came next.

"The baby?" She can feel his heartbeat increase against the hand she has sprawled against his chest. "Is it-?" She smiles then, a real spontaneous smile.

"He's glorious." She tells him, tears rushing back into her eyes so quickly he blurs in her site. His left hand comes up and brushes them away. "My little Bright Star."

"A boy?" She sees his wonder and nods again.

"You didn't know?" His head shakes.

"I don't think so. I just remember grabbing him up and rushing him to you. I don't think Cer-." He stops and she watches a stream of emotions slip over his emerald green eyes.

"She's gone." Brienne supplies for him. "The Hound. I don't know more, Tyrion might."

He clasped his hand around hers.

"I don't want more." He told her softly, bringing her fingers quickly to his lips then back to his chest.

"What happened after you left the Hound? Do you remember?" She's forgotten she was being soft with him now. She's forgotten his confusion; the head injury Sam's worried about, how his body looks like a thunderstorm sprawled out across his torso and that he's been dead for two months.

"I.." He pauses and she pushes her fingers up to lock between his. "I rang the bell, and then the tower came down." He looks at her with a raised eyebrow. "A tower fucking fell on me.. I think?"

"Only half a tower." She shrugs. "The other half is still standing."

"Well that's slightly less impressive." He japes and her face lights up.

"Only slightly."

"That's it." He says softly. "That's all I remember. Till Bronn was yelling, shouting out orders and then the fat little chainless Maester was all over me and then you." He looks at her softly. "Then you."

"That's Master Of Whispers Bronn and Grand Maester Tarly to you, My Lord."

"What idiot did that and still remained on the Iron Throne?"

"That rellic is long gone. Jon is king." She smiles.

"Not as Aegon Targaryen?" He raises an eyebrow.

"No. Just Jon." She sighs. "King Jon. He's doing quite well."

"Long gone.." He wrinkled his brow. "How long?"

"A while." She smiles at him sympathetically. "They called off the official search a month ago."

"A month?" He looks at her in disbelief.

"A month since they stopped looking. It's been two months." Her voice waivers and Jaime holds her tighter. 

Her resolve is cracking before his eyes and she can tell he doesn't know if he should stop it, or push it along. In the end he has not his choice. Her words are hopping from her mouth and rolling down a hill. "Tyrion pushed them to keep searching." She shook her head and it all pours out of her. "But then they found your sword and he felt it was time. He brought it to me in Tarth and just like that you were dead." She took a quick staggered breath. "You were dead and I held our baby and our swords and I tried to-." He grunts as he raises his lips to her forehead and presses them hard, his lame arm pressing against the back of skull. "I tried not to-." She gulps and he moved his lips between her eyes. "Not to throw myself out of the damn tower window and Jon sends me a raven and makes me Lord. Fucking. Commander." He closes his eyes and listens to her rage. "And I just wanted you. I'd become some stupid widowed highborn lady afraid to face the world without her husband."

"What have I done to you?" He sighs deeply. "My poor darling." He plants kisses on her face, making sweet coo's like she does to the baby when he whines. "My brave protector. What did I do to you?"

"You lived." She sniffs softly. "You lived for me."

…

"-something for the pain." She awakens slowly, his hand is still holding hers.

"And I have told you no." Jaime sighs.

"You cannot be comfo-." He cuts the maester off.

"It makes me cloudy." He tells him. "I don't want to be cloudy anymore. Besides it says here in the Lord Commander's notes, in each of her well outlined doomsday scenarios, that increased pain is a very important warning sign. How am I to know what is increased if I don't even know what it's increasing from."

"Ser Jaime-."

"It's no use arguing with him when he's like this." Brienne says sleepily from where her head is pressed against his thigh. She glances up at him, propped against the wall looking miserably uncomfortable and alive.

"You should listen to my wife." He says pointing a finger at the Maester.

"You should listen to your Lord Commander. We're going back to the Keep." She decides, pulling back the blankets. "You need to be with your bride Maester Tarly and I need my son and a bigger damn bed."

Sam nods at her and she turns back to Jaime.

"But My Love, I will suggest you take his pain elixir because the safest way to get you out right now is in a pine box." Jaime winces. "Until I have a handle on how you will be received in this city it's best no one knows you aren't a pile of bones long promised to Tormund the Giantsbane for his gnawing pleasure."

His mouth slips into a smile as she stretched.

"I'll make preparations." She pulls the door open and the Gold Cloak at the door turns to her at once. "I'll need someone to ride ahead and let damn Master of Whispers know I'll be needing his counsel." She leaves it open, pulls her cloak from where Sam had hung it three days earlier and casts a glance at her armor before leaning in and pressing her mouth to Jaime's. "And someone needs to get me a bloody squire."

He listens to her yell as she shuts the door behind her. Sam looks properly startled.

"She used to be quite shy in public." Jaime grins. "I can't put my finger on when that changed."

"Winterfell." Samwell shrugs. "When you arrived at Winterfell."

He sees her in the great hall, defending his honor as he had guarded hers years before. He looks at Sam who smiles back the smile of a man who knows what it's like to be steadily loved.

…..

He's looking at the box like it's maybe the worst thing he's ever seen and it makes her think maybe she's been too brash.

"You don't have to." She tells him softly and hates it when she uses that voice all armored up. It doesn't make sense, that voice is for when she's naked and wrapped soundly in his arms. "We can change the plan."

Sam sets down the elixir he's making and takes a step back out of the room.

"I can do it." He says hauntedly before clearing his throat. "I'll be fine, it's a twenty minute thing. The chainless Maester is going to drug me."

She can't sit comfortably on the bed in all her metal, so she kneels before him as he perches on the end of the bed.

"You've had a very long few days." She tells him, taking his hand in hers and running her thumb across his jaw. He leans in and she realizes just how hard it is for him to stay upright like this. She puts her hands against his torso carefully providing him some balance as he leans his head against hers.

"You've had a very long few months." He tells her, raising an eyebrow over one sad eye. "It's twenty minutes."

"Still."

"I want to properly meet our son." He sighs, watching a flicker of a smile cross her features. "I'd like to bend the knee to my new king and I'm going to need you there to help me get back up afterward."

"If there was another way to get you out safely.."

"You'd have found it." He breathes heavily, and she can feel his chest ripple with spasm. "I trust you." He grunts.

"Lie back." She tells him softly, cupping his head with her hand and trying to help him brace himself as she lowers him to the mattress.

"You weren't kidding about being properly wounded." He winces. "Sitting up feels like a battle itself."

"It will get better." She tells him, her palms pressing against the cramped muscles of his chest and sides.

"Are you sure?" He cracks a tightly shut eye to see her nod.

"I'm going to get Sam, you take the drink and then we'll do this when your sleeping."

He nods back at her but as she starts to stand his hand grips at hers and she's right back at his side for a few more minutes until his fingers unclench.

"Okay now?" He opens his palm and she stands and fetches the Maester. "Let's go home."


	3. Chapter 3

As the group makes its way over the hill with the pine box resting on the back of the cart; Brienne decides this was the worst idea she’s ever had. She looks backwards for a second, extending her arm until she can rest her hand on the top of the coffin. Her long fingers seek out the air vents in the crudely carved star of the seven. 

She could have just as easily ushered him away in a wheel house, it’s not like he is recognizable now, with half the men in Kings Landing maimed in the wars. She thinks for a moment that maybe she’s let herself over inflate his importance to these people, but then they pause, waiting for entry to the keep and she hears a man’s rough voice growl and the familiar moniker of _Kingslayer's Whore_. Her eyes slip towards the call and see’s a small cluster of men, she gestures to a gold cloak near her and gives them soft orders to find out all they can. 

Once inside the gates of the keep, Sam exhales a long breath beside her and pats her shoulder softly. She doesn’t breath easily until they have lifted him into the White Sword Tower and they’ve laid him on the bed. 

“You may leave.” She tells them, her tone clipped. ”And remember King Jon has sworn you mute about what you’ve seen here.”  
  


“Yes Lord Commander.” The tight recital of her title gives her a little peace of mind as the doors close.

She sighs then, at the sight of his dreamwine sleep, pressing her hand against the steady rise and fall of his chest. 

A knock at the door makes her jump, her body swinging around and her hand dropping to the hilt of her sword. 

“Ser?” The voice fills her with a soft warmth and she takes two big steps and swings the door open to find Pod standing on the other side. Before she can think about it she’s engulfed him in her arms and his voice is muffled against her cloak. “He’s alive?” 

“He’s alive.” She swallows hard and pulls back from her former squire, pulling him towards the bed. “He’s drugged. Sam thinks he’ll sleep a few hours more yet.” 

Pod looks at Jaime in what can only be described as relief and her heart pangs. 

“I didn’t know if I believed it.” Pod raises an eyebrow and Brienne chuckles despite herself. 

“I still don’t think I fully believe it.” 

“Ser Bronn is on his way.” Pod warns softly and she makes a face. 

“I suppose I’ll have to speak to him at some point.” She rolls her eyes, tracing her fingers down Jaime’s arm. 

“He’s been quiet good at his role.” Pod sniffs. “Oddly suited for it really.” 

“I would guess.” She sighs, easing herself into a chair beside the bed. Both of their eyes jump towards the open door when the master of whispers raps his knuckles against it. Brienne looks back at Jaime but he hasn’t moved. “Ser Bronn.”

“Lady Lannister.” He grins wickedly at her and she tries to remind herself to be grateful. 

“There were men.” She tells him without pretense. “Along the route. They called me the Kingslayer's Whore.” Bronn chuckles, but she can see the faint worry that crosses his face. “The Gold Cloaks should have names to you by sunset.”

“I’ll send my rats into the city.” He tells her.

“Your rats?” She makes a face.

“Vary’s had his little birds. I have my rats.” He shrugs roughly. 

“Ser Bronn has been doing something of a retelling.” Pod tells her and she lifts her eyebrow towards him. “Planting different stories of Ser Jaime. Rumors.”

“Rumors?” She asks skeptically.

“Rumors he’s alive. Rumors he’s confirmed dead. Rumors he’s the one who rang the bell.” Bronn waves an arm through the air. 

“He was.” She yelps. 

“Aye.” Bronn gulps. “And it’s best there is discussion about it in the streets. The more the momentum builds the easier it will be to bring him back from the dead.”

“It puts him at risk.” She hisses and Bronn shrugs. 

“It’s my job to introduce him. It’s your job to protect him.”

She looks back at Jaime, following his slow rhythmic breaths. 

“I will.”

…………..

  
  


The world is a mess of colors and sounds when Jaime Lannister next opens his eyes, immediately wishing he had not. He swallows repeatedly against the sour taste that wells into his throat and lets his eyes skim above him as far as they will reach without turning his aching head.

He catches some movement to his left and his wife blurs into and out of his line of sight. Her body swaying in a rhythm some how linked to the staccato bursts of sound that make his head throb. 

A baby, he realizes faintly. _His baby_. Jaime turns slowly towards the chaos and what he finds clears his muddled head. Brienne in her white house coat bouncing on her heals while pushing out short wisps of air in a hush sound as the squirming infant whimpers in a dying protest; his wet, red face pressing against her throat. 

“No, no, my precious.” She coos. “No more crying, my Bright Star. You’ll wake your fath-.” She turns when she says this, her words falling short at Jaime’s wide round eyes looking back at her. She freezes, her body slowly coming down from its tip toes, her long fingers encircling the golden haired boy, pulling him impossibly closer to her chest. The baby freezes too, in response to his mothers sudden change of demeanor Jaime supposes, but it’s too lovely of a sight for him to contemplate for long. Both his wife and his child gaze at him with mild alarm.

“Hi.” He says softly, running his tongue over dry lips and letting his hand hang off the bed, reaching towards her. 

“You’re awake.” She breathes, and the baby lets out a not quiet unpleasant noise and she turns to him and smiles. 

“Bring him closer?” He asks her softly and Brienne complies setting herself on the bed beside him. He moves his stunted arm to the small of her back and presses and she leans the baby forward in her arms. His fingers trace tentatively over blonde curls and curious green eyes meet his. “Hello.” The baby’s body still heaves with every other breath, but he’s no longer crying. He presses his arm more firmly against Brienne and she presses a kiss to his forehead. “He looks like Tommen.” 

“Tyrion claims he has his disposition as well, but as fussy as he is, it’s clearly yours.” Her voice is warm and hoarse and he moves his fingers from the baby’s head to his back where he can stretch them against her wrist, holding on to them both. Brienne pulls her pillow from the other side of the soft mattress and slides it under his elbow and before he can ask why, she’s deposited the sniffling baby into the crook of his right arm. His left hand fumbles to his chest with a sudden fear he’ll drop him, but Brienne is there, _always there_ , with her thin fingers pulling his forearm more soundly around the baby who stares back up at him. “There.” 

He held his daughter once as a babe, she’d been sleeping. Tyrion had been the one to unceremoniously drop her into her secret fathers arms. He’d never held the boys, his sister never dared to allow it. Now he gazes anxiously at his son and a whole lifetime of wasted empty arms makes the bundle heavier than it should be. He scoots closer towards his wife, ignoring the dull ache of his torso has he moves. She responds by producing more pillows and packing him in tightly, one hand never leaving his arm, fingers wedged into the small space between him and his son. _His son_. 

“Well now.” Brienne sighs, her breath catching slightly making a jagged airy sound.  
It seems like he quite likes it here, in his father’s arms.”

She glances at her as she swallows hard and before his eyes drop back to the pale faced babe. He licks his lips again, as if preparing to make some jape, but he finds he can’t say anything over the swell of his throat as she lays her head on his shoulder, her long body curling around him as she presses a kiss to his chest and then one to the babe’s head. 

“Another thing we have in common, Bright Star.”

………………..

Brienne opens her eyes to the sound of more voices than she would expect upon waking. She grimaces when she sees Bronn, his brown eyes twinkling with mirth as she pulls at the already modest neckline of her sleep clothes with an uncomfortable grunt and a sharp look at Jaime. 

“Lord Commander.” He leers. 

“I didn’t invite him.” Her husband sighs. “And it’s not like I can kick him out.” He gestures at his covered legs. “I can’t even piss by myself.” He looks at her accusingly. “You were knocked out so deeply Pod had to help me piss.” 

She rolls her eyes at him and watches his attempt to suppress the smile that’s building. 

“I have a feeling that was probably worse off for Pod then you.” She chastizes, glancing towards the corner of the room where the young knight bounces the babe carefully in his arms. Brienne’s heart clenches slightly at the sight and her face must betray her because Jaime is grinning at her goofily. 

“He’s a very dutiful boy.”

“He’s a man grown.”

“He’s two and twenty.” Jaime smirks. “Hardly a man grown.”

“I was two and twenty when we met.” She tells him, her eye brows raising. His eyes dim slightly and he swallows before a huff of a laugh pushes out of his chest. 

“So you were.” He grins and she smiles back at him. 

“We’ve planted the rumors about the Kingslayer being seen alive in Dunstondale a few weeks ago.” Bronn interrupts without remorse. Brienne bristles at the moniker. Jaime does not. “So far, for most it seems an unremarkable thought, or at least not a vengeance inducing one.”.

“That’s nice.” Jaime turns to her his mouth tight and his eyes full of humor. “To have ones return from the dead be met without inducing vengeance.” She snorted at his playful demeanor and the right side of his mouth stretched across his face. “Nice to know the people care.” He was grinning fully now. “Or at least aren’t enraged by the very idea.” 

At that she can’t help but laugh and from across the room the baby lets out a yelp in response. Pod brings him forward and she reaches for him, his placid face meeting hers and a tiny fist wrapping itself in her chin length hair. 

“I think _he_ very much likes the idea.” Jaime continues. “Don’t you, son?” 

The baby’s eyes go to Jaime’s and Brienne feels momentarily breathless when he moves his hands from her hair, fingers still trailing loose strands and slap softly against his father’s face. Jaime brings up his thumb and pries one set of digits free, pressing them against his lips.

“Isn’t this touching Poddy old boy?” Bronn says with a fake sweetness. 

“Bronn?” Jaime says, his eyes never leaving his wife’s face, as she feels her eyes well up with sudden unshed tears. The sell sword turned Lord grunts in reply. “Get the fuck out.” 

The man complains on his way to the door, and it takes some gentle shoves from Pod, but as the door shuts, Brienne lets her eyes close and the pools in them slide across her cheeks and over Jaime’s fingers as he comes to brush them away. He kisses her as she leans into his body, his left hand now groping at the baby until he is spread out against his chest and Brienne’s hand joins his on his tiny back. 

And so she melts into him, her long lost husband, returned from the dead; as he pats their son and kisses her hair and her damp face. And she knows he’ll hold them both there until she’s ready to be strong again.


End file.
